Source: East African Business Week
Hoima — When labour pains strike, Violet Kobusingye has to endure a bumpy painful 30 kilometre ride from her village Mbaraara to Hoima Referral Hospital in Hoima town to get better medical pre and post natal care.
Source: East African Business Week
Kigali — Many Rwandan women are developing through the training acquired through Women for Women (WOW) International Organization which started operating in the country in 1997.
Source: Leadership
The British Department for International Development (DFID), is to sponsor 350 female students from Zamfara to study various courses at the state College of Education in Maru.
Source: FOROYAA Newspaper
An Action Aid-EC Funded project for promoting women's access to socio-economic rights and economic empowerment in Niamina West, Niamina East and Niamina Dankunku in the Central River Region has been launched on Wednesday, 2nd April, ,2014 at Jareng Village.
Source: Vanguard
NKECHI was full of life and in high spirits. She was nine months pregnant and was already feeling the contractions of labour at well-spaced intervals. She had no expectation of problems and was hopeful of a normal delivery.
Source: The New Dawn (Monrovia)
The Ministry of Gender and Development has hosted a one day workshop for journalists all across the country, rallying support of the media in the fight against Sexual Gender Based Violence or SGBV.
Source: Guardian
New York commission will seek to build on 1994 action plan and incorporate its key principles into future development targets. Progress towards 20-year-old targets that sought to put women's sexual and reproductive health and rights at the centre of development policy will be assessed at a UN meeting in New York this week.
Source: Daily Observer
The governor of the Central River Region (CRR), Alhaji Ganyie Touray on Wednesday launched a 19-million dalasi project, dubbed Promoting Women's Socio-Economic Rights in Jareng village, Niamina East District.
The project beneficiaries are Niamina East, Niamina West and Niamina Dankunku, targeting 122 smallholder women's farmer groups, who are actively engaged in the Agriculture sector. The European Union is funding the 75% of the three-year project, while Action Aid International the Gambia will fund the remaining 25%. The National Women Farmers Association (NaWFA) will jointly implement it with the Female Lawyers Association of The Gambia.
Source: ANGOP
The chairwoman of the African Union (AU) Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, last Friday in Brussels, Belgium, highlighted the fact that the African continent has been recording high levels of female emancipation, which even supersedes continents that are considered to have a longer experience in terms of gender equity.
Speaking at a press conference, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said that Africa even supersedes Europe, for the fact that the former has 60 per cent of female MPs and others occupy leadership posts, as a demonstration of the rise in gender equity.
Source: Vanguard
Medical experts have raised alarm over increasing cases of a hazardous health condition known as Endometriosis in women which causes unbearable pain during the menstrual cycle of women but is wrongly diagnosed by most doctors.
The condition which affects one in 10 women, unfortunately, is mistaken for other forms of infection or fibroids, hence making treatment options very difficult and painful for the patient.
Source: Health-E
Nonhlanhla Matsunyane was in Grade 11 when a man 20 years older than her followed her to school one day.
Within months, the man was providing her struggling family with groceries and money – and she was providing him with sex even though he refused to use condoms.
"I was afraid of getting pregnant but, because he was doing everything, I felt like I owe him. I need to pay him with something," Nonhlanhla told Health-e.
And pay she did. Not only did the married man impregnate her, but he also infected her with HIV.
Source: The sunday independent
The ANC Women's League finally responded to allegations of the sexist remarks supposedly made by the ANC Youth League and the Congress of South African Students (Cosas) about the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela. The two groups apparently made disparaging comments about Madonsela's looks, describing her as "that woman with the big, ugly nose".
The Youth League and Cosas vented their fury towards the public protector following her report on security upgrades on President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla home.
Source: Tanzania Daily News
From Joyce Msafiri's assured manner in the delivery room of Ulaya Health Centre in Kilosa District, an observer would never guess how far this former fistula sufferer has come.
Now a certified village midwife, 30-year-old Joyce assists in childbirth, saving the lives of mothers and babies and providing them valuable emotional support.
Source: The New Dawn
The Ministry of Gender and Development has hosted a one day workshop for journalists all across the country, rallying support of the media in the fight against Sexual Gender Based Violence or SGBV.
The workshop was also intended to give media practitioners a broad knowledge on reporting SGBV issues that are on the increase here. The Deputy Minister for Technical and Research Service at the Gender Ministry Madam Meima Sirleaf-Karneh, told journalists that their partnership was needed in fighting SGBV in Liberia.
Source: Morocco World News
Do land, seeds and crops have a gender? Perhaps they do in sub-Saharan Africa, where women produce up to 80% of foodstuffs for household consumption and sale in local markets, according to a report by the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). For crops such as rice, wheat and maize, make up about 90% of food consumed by rural dwellers, it is women who mostly sow the seeds, do the weeding, cultivate and harvest the crops and sell surpluses.
And for secondary crops such as legumes and vegetables, says the FAO, “Women’s contribution…is even greater,” adding that it’s as if only women are involved in producing these crops. What’s more, they make and tend the gardens that provide much-needed nutritional and economic well-being.
Source: This Day Live
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs and Youths Matters, Senator Helen Esuene, Sunday said that bill on sexual violence and harassment against women would soon be passed by the Senate.
Esuene, representing Akwa Ibom South senatorial district, stated this at the inauguration of the National Executive Council of Ibom Consolidated Assembly (ICA), in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
Source: Times Live
Legal abortion has been available in South Africa since 1997, but backstreet abortionists still advertise widely, with some desperate women using over-the-counter herbal products to induce labour.
Research by University of Cape Town Women's Reproductive Health Unit director Professor Jane Harries and colleague Deborah Constant found that 17% of mothers admitted to trying to terminate their pregnancies at home or by approaching a backstreet abortionist.
Source: Daily News
A 10-year-old Sengalese girl who was raped and is carrying twins has been denied an abortion.
The young girl was raped by a neighbor, reports The Guardian.
"She is going to have to go through with the pregnancy," said Fatou Kine Camara, president of the Senegalese women lawyers' association, which has been campaigning to the authorities for her to have a legal abortion.
Source: Care2
Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill appears to have sparked a renewed interest in persecuting LGBT people across Africa, sometimes with violent consequences. Here are five stories of shocking persecution and anti-LGBT rhetoric that cannot be ignored.
Source: Leadership
In the African cosmos, the man, as head of the family is, expected to lead, provide for and protect his family. This has been his role for millennia, until now. With the passing of time in an era many consider the post-modern age, men are increasingly giving up this role to their wives. Although the prevailing norm still says that a man should be the family's